5 Toxic Habits That Steal Your Happiness

The habits we have define us for better or for worse, because they can act not only as strategies that help us overcome obstacles; they can also be like the poisoned apple that, despite having an appetizing look, hides a trap within it.

Therefore, despite the fact that many of our habits allow us to optimize our efforts and are considered healthy, there are many others that end up being toxic for our health and life itself, stopping us from being happy.

It is even possible that habits you consider relatively “good” are not so good at all or you are not even aware of the consequences of your array of habits. Today we bring you 5 toxic habits that may be stopping you from being happy.

“Acquiring these habits or others from a young age does not have little importance: it has absolute importance”

-Aristotle-

1. Thinking negatively

We tend to have the bad habit of thinking negatively. We are experts in what we do not want, do not have, do not deserve, or cannot do, focusing our attention on this. Breeding negative thoughts can be a bad habit that ends up limiting us both on a social and individual level. Because if you believe that you cannot, are you really going to try?

Negative thoughts can build themselves up as our great enemy who little by little traps us in its spider web, turning everything around us into a gray fog that, in the most extreme of cases, turns into depression, along with other variables.

The difficulty stems from the fact that as a habit, we have gotten used to it and getting rid of it is not so easy. For this, we have to start paying attention to our way of thinking, which is inevitably tied to the way we speak and judge ourselves. Furthermore, turning your attention towards what you want will also be a tool that allows you to call forth the light among the thick gray fog.

2. Blaming others for everything

Blaming others for what happens to you is avoiding responsibility for your own actions and even your own feelings. In this way, you are telling yourself that you are not the master of your life and that it is others or the circumstances themselves who rule you.

It is necessary to remember that you have control of yourself and only you have the answers for what happens to you. The famous air force pilot and religious leader Dieter Uchtdorf once said, “The older we get, the more we look back and realize that external circumstances don’t really matter or determine our happiness.”

Happiness is an attitude and if you decide to blame others for what happens to you instead of being aware of what you can do to keep moving forward, it will be hard for you to savor it.

3. Trying to be someone you aren’t

You can live your life trying to be yourself or, to the contrary, trying to be the person that others want you to be. You decide, but obviously turning into the person that others want will imply betraying your own way of being. Think about it. How can you manage to be happy if you are not yourself?

Putting on a mask is a double-edged sword, a trap that over time will push you away from yourself and who you believe you are. As such, find yourself, learn to accept yourself, to love yourself, and show yourself who you are; this is the only way your relationship with yourself and others will be authentic.

4. Comparing yourself with others

Comparing ourselves with others will not serve any purpose because each of us is unique and irreplaceable and has had different experiences. Their story, yours, and mine have nothing to do with one another, so why compare ourselves? To console ourselves or to believe we are superior? What is the ends we are striving for?

Comparing different experiences makes no sense given that there are not the same conditions for different people.

My happiness can be very different from my friend’s, so will doing what he does make me a happy person? Ask yourself: What is happiness for me? In this way, you can find out how to act. Gratitude is the antidote for comparison and the best medicine to achieve happiness. Each day, write down the things that make your life wonderful, as small as they may be… that will make you happy.

5. Not learning from mistakes

Mistakes can be our best teachers if we learn from them. If we make a mistake but we let it happen without reflecting on what happened and what lesson we can take from it, something similar is probably going to happen to us again.

To understand this way of thinking, you just have to follow the words that Thomas Edison once said to a reporter who asked him about his invention of the incandescent light bulb: “I have no failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So you can see that with persistence and good actions, mistakes and failure are just a part of the path to success.

Thinking negatively, blaming others, putting on a mask, comparing ourselves, or not learning from are mistakes are just 5 habits that may be having negative effects on our emotional state almost without our being aware of them, stopping us from being happy.

Happiness is within us and we are the ones who can create it and contribute to its development. Do not forget this. Pay attention to your habits and change them if need be.

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The content in this publication is presented for informative purposes only. In no sense is this information intended to provide diagnoses or act as a substitute for the work of a qualified professional. For this we recommend that you contact a reliable specialist.

The content in this publication is presented for informative purposes only. In no sense is this information intended to provide diagnoses or act as a substitute for the work of a qualified professional. For this we recommend that you contact a reliable specialist.